Intilligent Gis-Based Spatial Decision Support Systems For Multicriteria Decison Making

The impetus of this study was the recognition that spatial decision-making, such as site selection, requires advanced means to handle thenumerous socio-economic factors while considering physical suitabilityconditions. Although expert systems (ES), geographic information systems(GIS), and multicriteria decision making (MCDM) techniques have playedimportant roles in solving spatial decision problems, each of these tools has its own limitations and could not be used alone to reach an optimal solution.Simultaneous use of several decision support tools such as GIS, MCDM, andES is necessary for reaching optimal solutions for highly complex spatialdecision-making problems. This poses the challenge of integrating thesedecision support tools. Although current systems integration techniques (looseand tight coupling) have achieved considerable success in integrating GIS with other tools, these techniques have many drawbacks and limitations. Thesedrawbacks can be avoided by applying the concept of software interoperabilityand the COM technology.This study developed a strategy to facilitate the decision-making processfor industrial site selection in the presence of different priorities and uncertainties among the decision criteria. A framework for integrating the strengths of GIS(ArcGIS 8.2), ES (Visual Rule Studio), and MCDM (AHP) using COM technologywas developed. In addition, the decision maker’s preferences on a range of